


Five Times Dean Didn't Wanna Talk About It

by inplayruns



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Gen, five times fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-23
Updated: 2012-04-23
Packaged: 2017-11-04 04:21:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/389688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inplayruns/pseuds/inplayruns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wishes he could batter it down as easily as that crowbar cut into his baby.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Dean Didn't Wanna Talk About It

1\. 

Sam looks as wounded as Dean feels, but he’s not showing it. He can’t. He keeps the heavy glare across his face, and lets one thought shoot through his head: _go away go away go away_. Because if Sam keeps looking at him like that, it’s all going to come out. 

He just nods, though, and retreats. 

Dean lets his thoughts spiral. It’s Dad, yeah, of course it was gonna be Dad. It’s Dad’s hand on his shoulder, telling him he’s proud of him – right before he gives him the worst duty Dean can think of.

He wonders how he’d even kill Sam. If the thing that took over Sam’s body would flash those puppy eyes at him in deception, or if he’d have Sam’s blood on his hands. If he’d have to know what it’s like to touch Sam’s skin when it’s lifeless and cold. If he’d have to push a knife through layers of skin and muscle and maybe even bone, to hear the sick wet crunch. He’s done it to demons before, and not thought about it until after. 

He wonders if Sammy, the real Sammy, would _want_ it. If he’d fight off the thing inside him for just enough time to emerge and plead with him. And Dean’s not sure he could do it, not even if it was Sam or the world.

And he can’t even mourn Dad, not the way he’d like. Dean wouldn’t know where to begin, anyway. He’s got his car, jacket, journal, and everything about the way he taught Dean how to live. It’ll have to be enough for now. 

God. A reaper had her hand on his forehead. How’s he supposed to come back and do these small-time cases with stupid kids who don’t know not to open the door to strangers, after that? 

Dean doesn’t even mean to do what he does next. He slams the crowbar into the Impala’s window, and the reverberation up his arm is so sharp it gets translated to pain. Glass flies out, and some of the little slivers bite into his skin.

Good. 

He takes the crowbar to the rest of his car, until there’s a big ugly misshapen hole in the trunk, until he fucking reeks from the sweat and dirt and oil all over him, until his cheek stings from the way the pointy parts of his amulet hit against it. It’s hurt and disgust, and he squashes his hands against the Impala and sobs so loudly, over fucking everything.

Sammy might have the psychic powers that still freak Dean out – not even that, they _terrify_ Dean down to his gut, because it’s something inhuman living inside that person he raised and loves so much it terrifies him, something he can’t understand – but it’s Dean who’s got this darkness inside him, and it’s been there forever. He wishes he could batter it down as easily as that crowbar cut into his baby.

 

2.

“You got any family?” Alec asks him, picking through some macaroni salad that’s actually really fucking great.

Dean’s not looking at her, but he senses the way Lisa’s entire posture stiffens. _My brother’s gone_ , is all he’d ever told her, then spent too much of her money on booze he sucked down too fast, and woke her up by the way he’d get shot out of his nightmares screaming. He spent his off-days with every dusty, sketchy book he got sent in from university libraries, trying to find some way he could get Sam out. Fuck, he’d dig him out if he had to, scratch through the dirt inch by inch with his own hands.

That’s just when he’s alone, though. Have him play house, interact with these peppy suburbanites while he’s wearing a polo and khakis, and he’s actually okay. How _normal_ he can be scares him.

“Yeah,” he answers, taking a swallow of his – gotta be like his eighth beer, but no one’s commented on it and there’s a fuzzy edge to the world but otherwise this shit’s like water to him at this point. “Younger brother’s back in Kansas.”

Dean’s not wrong. Sammy _is_ in Kansas, forever sealed under the scorched dirt of the graveyard, and on some other plane at once. It makes Dean’s stomach lurch, and he changes the subject to Alec’s kids and their baseball league. Lisa sneaks her hand under the table and squeezes Dean’s knee, warmly. 

He’s fine. He’s _fine_. Again, it scares him how normal he is.

It’s later. The sun’s reached that annoying level in the sky that hits him hard in the eyes, and he has to put his sunglasses on. He’s fine, but then there’s the sizzle of steaks on the grill and it’s like any night he cooked for him and Sammy and listened to his dumb little brother complain about how much red meat he was eating. There’s a black plastic garbage can, sauce-stained paper plates peeking out of it, and Dean hears the tiny metallic _ping_ of a dropped amulet into another garbage.

He’s so fucking grateful for those stupid sunglasses as he sucks in all the air he can and rushes to the bathroom. He _heaves_ , and out come the cheeseburger and the ten beers and the fucking delicious macaroni salad. Embarrassment twists his stomach, and he flushes and rests his cheek against the porcelain of the bowl. If it gets wet between his skin and the toilet seat – he’s got his lips like an inch away from where Carson Leitch’s ass has been, for fuck’s sake – he’s just fucking ignoring it right now.

Dean _crawls_ to get to the door, and locks it. The sharp noise in the silence comforts him. He sits, back against the wall, and barks out a choked laugh or two. 

For a few minutes, he takes inventory, because he’s always been good at that. He’s got a very pointedly empty stomach and douchey sunglasses, the lenses currently smeared. He’s got his car under a tarp, his guns locked away, his house – he has a house – covered in devil’s traps and thin little lines of salt. He’s got Lisa and Ben, and thank God. Hell, he’s got a whole bevy of people outside probably asking Lisa where _her guy_ got off to.

He’s got a really fucked up head, and no Bobby or Cas to lean on. No one who would get it all the way, and it’s hilarious that some big kahuna angel would understand him more than any of the actual _people_ he knows now, the ones who have barbeques and take their kids to soccer practice and don’t live the fucked-up half-life he does. Or maybe they do, it’s not like he ever talks about it. Maybe they’re all cramped up in bathrooms puking over stupid little shit, too.

But there’s no Sam. And that’s the only thing Dean needs to know his life is just horribly fucking wrong.

 

3.

Thank God for the Northeast, really, because they’ve got the fancy-schmancy mini-marts attached to gas stations; Sammy can stop at WaWa and grab, like, three tuna wraps for the road and try to force half the chipotle salad – Dean barks good-naturedly at him to just get a burrito next time like a normal person – he bought on Dean too. It’s like his doofy health freak wet dream.

So Sam’s inside the squat little supermarket, probably scaring all the customers away with how much iced tea he’s loading up on, when Dean presses his back to the Impala and scrolls through his contacts to dial a number, even though he has it memorized by heart. Still. 

Every ring cuts to him. He can’t help it if he’s this fucking paranoid – he knows what’s out there. Sure he littered the house with secret devils’ traps, but that won’t stop the Leviathan, and who knows what a pissed-off angel could do – 

“Hello?”

Dean tries not to breathe out too hard. “Yeah, can I speak to Cara Anderson?” 

“I think you have the wrong number, I’m sorry.” A pause. “I’ve been getting a lot of calls like this lately and – I’m sorry, am I listed in the phone book under her name, or something?” 

Lisa’s got that warmth in her voice; it was what made Dean think, what seems like a long time ago, _maybe – some day – if the world’s okay and Sammy’s gonna make it –_ but it had been thin and tight, nearly gone, the last time he was in her house. It’s back, now, and he lets that exhale come out.

So he’s smiling into the plastic of the phone and gripping it so tight the thing shakes. “Uh, no,” he answers, with a heavy cough. “Finger must’ve slipped while I was calling. I’m sorry.” 

He hangs up and wonders if he should go inside to distract himself and grab a gooey sandwich while he’s at it.

 

4\. 

Of course, there’s a fucking downpour. He already wasn’t looking forward to talking to Frank, because Frank’s a paranoid asshat and Dean leaves every rendezvous with him feeling totally lost and like a moron. Well, more so than usual. But now he can’t even walk ten feet without looking like he’s been underwater, and of course Frank makes you hike like ten minutes to his squat little trailer because there could be _surveillance_. Of course.

Dean wants to wait it out, but he twists his neck to look out the back window and the sky’s terrifyingly gray stretching as far as he can see. Plus, if he doesn’t show up between 12:46 and thirty-two seconds, and 12:46 and forty-six seconds, Frank probably won’t let him in. 

He sighs, deeply, and gets out of the car to grab – shit, it’s the only thing that could even start to serve as an umbrella in this car. He doesn’t even have a magazine to hold over his head.

Fuck, he actually has to stare at the trunk of this shitty car for a few seconds, and if only the rain wasn’t so annoying – but whatever. He can do this; compared to everything else lately this is easy. Totally easy. He pops the trunk open, and grabs the coat.

It doesn’t reek like Dean thought it might, but there’s this scent of still water overrun with weeds clinging to it. Just hunching over to hoist the thing over his head makes his heart rate tick up, but he tells himself that it’s because of the way he has to rush to get to Frank’s bunker.

“You’re late,” Frank says, by way of greeting. Then, he takes in the sight of Dean, and his eyebrows raise up high. “You have to kill something on the way here?” 

“Uh. No.” Dean grunts and steps into the threshold of the makeshift house. 

Because he’s really dumb sometimes, he actually puts the coat on. Honestly, he was trying to look normal, but putting it on does the opposite. It’s not too small because it’s a baggy trenchcoat, after all, but it’s too short in the arms and too tight across the back, and clearly not his. The coat’s cold and wet now, to boot, but he keeps it on. 

God, there’s blood all over the thing, dried into the fabric months ago. Even this rain couldn’t drive it out. Dean’s stomach does a stupid lurch, and Frank hasn’t stopped looking at him, arms crossed like he’s not going to let him actually come in without an explanation. Great.

“I’m keeping it for a friend,” is all he can say. 

There’s gotta be something in his voice – goddamn it – because Frank’s still-raised eyebrows droop back down fast, and he just says “alright” and doesn’t call Dean a naïve dumbass once, the entire time he’s there.

 

5\. 

Dean slips the flask into his own pocket. Sam’s been eyeing him worriedly ever since the shit with the haunted sandwich – seriously, what is his fucking life? – but he lets him take it without even so much as a look. 

When the flames burn high, Dean just _grabs_ Sam’s elbow. Now Sam gives him a look, but looks away just as quickly. 

Dean needs to know, right now, that Sam’s there. Maybe Satan’s chattering away in Sam’s head, but Sam keeps saying he’s okay, and Dean needs to believe that to the point of bitter denial, too. Sam’s there, his arm solid under Dean’s palm, as the flames disappear into a blur behind Dean’s eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic came about because I've had the idea for #3 and #4 for ages, so I just decided screw it, I'm gonna write this. I tried to write a And One Time He Did ending to make this fic happier, but it just wasn't working, so... maybe hopefully someday it will?


End file.
